


Who Dares To Love Forever?

by CadetDru



Series: Who Wants To Live Forever [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Flaming Sword, Gen, M/M, flamed like anything, guardian of the eastern gate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21800146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CadetDru/pseuds/CadetDru
Summary: The entire point of the flaming sword was for the Guardian of the Eastern Gate to slice and chop at the Serpent.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Who Wants To Live Forever [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591672
Kudos: 26





	1. When Love Must Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The entire point of the flaming sword was for the Guardian of the Eastern Gate to slice and chop at the Serpent.

The entire point of the flaming sword was for the Guardian of the Eastern Gate to slice and chop at the Serpent. Aziraphale's complete and deliberate ignorance of that idea was one of the many reasons why Crowley absolutely adored the angel. The fact that Aziraphale ended up just giving it away instead made it all the sweeter.

It took a long time for the sword to come back to Aziraphale, but it belonged to him and had been waiting for the right time. It was also supposed to be Crowley's own death. These things are known, if not necessarily Written. There are powers and destinies given to certain objects.

Moments after the world didn't officially and formally end, some things went back to how they had been. Hell was coming for the Anti-Christ and his humans, for the angel and fallen angel in attendance. This somehow led to a complete regression. The Guardian actually threatening the Serpent was also new. the Eastern Gate held his sword (not currently flaming) aloft, ready to strike the Serpent down. The Serpent was already on the ground, was already knocked to the Earth itself by the force of Lucifer coming forth. This part was new. The Serpent had given up on everything he had known. He was going to die, be obliterated off the face of the Earth in the most literal way. That much was clear.

"Come up with something!" the Guardian shouted. The anger and need on his face was palpable. The sword wasn't flaming, the Guardian's wings weren't unfurled, but the angelic power was clear anyway. It was a clear command. It was a horrifying threat. It wasn't even plausible. The Guardian actually threatening the Serpent was how it had been written, but not how it had ever worked. Aziraphale meant it. Crowley had done too much for Aziraphale and vice versa for it to end the way it was supposed it have back in the absolute beginning. Aziraphale finally had his sword back, but that didn't change who he was. He had always been a warrior, but he didn't have to be only that. He'd practically invented free will of his own volition, just to protect a woman who had just been called into existence. 

At least, Crowley hoped that was all true. He had never wanted to go up against the Guardian of the Eastern Gate. That would have been a quick fight, leaving Crowley suitable time be a nice belt or handbag. He'd fallen in love with the angel Aziraphale, not the Guardian at all. That angel couldn't be gone, couldn't be back to what he was always destined and never able to be. 

Crowley was absolutely vulnerable. He was surrounded by his potential destruction from all sides. His heart, which he should not have had, was on the verge of breaking. It couldn't be true. Fear and confusion and desperation rolled over Crowley he couldn't lose his life and his love and everything else that he'd ever had in these quick shreds. Aziraphale couldn't do this. He had given away the sword for a reason. He couldn't just change his mind and take it back up to finish the job.

Aziraphale was supposed to be the nice one. He wasn't the coward who wanted to run away, but neither was he the one who screamed at the heavens and hissssed that they were on their own side, just the two of them. He wasn't the one who ran into a burning building and once again screamed at the heavens. He was the un-Fallen one. 

The sword hit the ground, with a clatter that reverberated throughout Crowley. "Or I'll never talk to you again!" Aziraphale finished. His own heartache was bleeding through. Crowley stared at him even harder. Now, that was a threat. Crowley's heart did start to crack. The whole point of it all, the whole point if the world as far as Crowley had ever been concerned, was to have Aziraphale in it. If time was going to roll itself back like this, if time was going to rip the one little shred of love that the Serpent had ever managed to keep for himself, then he was going to stop time before it got too far away from him.

He fixed everything, as much as he could. The Serpent did just what the Guardian wanted him to do, and wasn't that the story of the world.


	2. Who waits forever anyway?

Crowley could be Aziraphale. Take doubt and pain, and drown it in love. Let the pettiness peek through, let the hedonistic tendencies bubble to the surface. Cover it all with stiff fabric. Wrap the Guardian of the Eastern Gate up in tartan, until no one expected you to be a warrior any more. 

He could demonstrate enough love to convince Heaven that he was an un-Fallen angel. Crowley loved one, had been studying him for six thousand years. Memorizing his every gesture, every set to his lips. He could make big, sad, loving eyes like Aziraphale did when he was behind happy or tightly pressed lips when he was judging everyone and everything in his vicinity.

He had been worried that Aziraphale wouldn't know what to do with his body. Now he was getting worried that Aziraphale wouldn't want to give it back. They had swapped shapes after working out what Agnes Nutter wanted them to do. Aziraphale seemed to be enjoying himself. Crowley wasn't as keen, wasn't looking forward to what they had to do.

It wasn't a good opportunity for Crowley to confess his feelings, bare his soul, and try to talk Aziraphale out of their reckless plan. It was the best chance he had at any of the three. He settled instead for watching Aziraphale carefully take on his own mannerisms. He could be patient. He could survive. If they didn't survive, then it wouldn't matter. 

This body hadn't been Aziraphale's for very long, had been called into existence by the Anti-Christ to replace the previous model. Crowley didn't know how it was supposed to feel. It didn't seem to have any particular imprint upon it. It was nothing but a mask. 


	3. Forever Is Ours Today

They had lunch at the Ritz complete with an unobserved nightingale singing in Berkeley Square. The Fallen angel and his still un-Fallen companion drifted to the bookshop. Aziraphale hadn't seen the shop since he had inadvertently discorporated when Sergeant Shadwll tried to exorcise him. He only vaguely understood Crowley's claims that it had burnt down. The only real clue that it had been restored was that there were new books that might have appealed to an eleven-year-old collector. 

Aziraphale tried not to linger too long, but he wanted to see what was missing if anything.

"Everything alright?" Crowley asked. He was leaning against a bookshelf, blocking Aziraphale's view of the books stacked there.

"I've been in love with you for eighty years and I never knew how or when to say it," Aziraphale blurted. He was still focused on the books in front of him, not looking at Crowley. 

"I'm sorry?" Crowley said, because he could not have heard those words. "Eighty years," Crowley repeated back, trying to draw the angel's attention.

"This is a situation where having a proper catalogue might help identify what's missing or what's new," Aziraphale said carefully. "Of course, that would match the current contents, wouldn't it?"

"That doesn't sound at all like what I heard." Crowley grinned. He grabbed Aziraphale's lapels. "Are you sure you don't mean ssssixty centuriessss?" he hissed.

Aziraphale frankly stared at Crowley. "Sixty centuries... six thousand years... you can't mean this whole time."

"I'm sorry, was it not obvious enough," Crowley sneered, twisting Aziraphale's coat some more. The hiss was under control. Aziraphale wasn't breaking out of his grip, was in fact resting his hands on Crowley's slim hips. "I have alwaysssss," he said, and the hiss was overpowering. 

Words weren't enough and were too much to express it all. Crowley could tell Aziraphale felt the same way about that much at least. 

"Only eighty years?" he asked, his voice breaking.

Aziraphale wrapped his arms around Crowley to kiss him. That seemed like apology and answer enough. 


End file.
